


Safe

by Miaou Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7468494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Miaou%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still doesn’t feel safe, not in the apartment whose number is on his lease—but he does feel safe two floors down, in the apartment of the guy he pays his rent to in cash each month, who never asks questions and who lets Sousuke fuck away the waking nightmare of every human target he’s taken out single-bullet without blinking; who fucks the ghosts out of Sousuke when he needs that; and who lets him sleep afterwards, blessedly dreamless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SASO 2016, bonus round 4, for this prompt: "To be a spy is to live alone in a foreign land, sending information back to your homeland without ever letting anyone know who you really are. For a spy, death is the end of everything." — Joker Game
> 
> Despite the prompt, this is not a Joker Game AU.

Rin has been Sousuke’s handler for long enough that on the rare occasions he’s offered Sousuke advice outside professional lines, Sousuke has taken it. The second of those times was when Rin gave him the address of the apartment building where Sousuke has been living for nearly two years now, even though before this he’s always rented places with six month leases and left without a forwarding address as soon as the lease ran out, never feeling safe anywhere.

He still doesn’t feel safe, not in the apartment whose number is on his lease—but he does feel safe two floors down, in the apartment of the guy he pays his rent to in cash each month, who never asks questions and who lets Sousuke fuck away the waking nightmare of every human target he’s taken out single-bullet without blinking; who fucks the ghosts out of Sousuke when he needs that; and who lets him sleep afterwards, blessedly dreamless.

Even in Makoto’s bed, though, Sousuke still wakes up every morning thinking this could be the day he’ll die.

The day his apartment gets broken into, Sousuke walks away. He waits for Rin to contact him with the extraction point and time.

Then he walks back in. He still has Makoto’s key and he uses it one last time.

“Take this.” Before Makoto can say anything, Sousuke hands him an envelope with three passports and all the cash he could get his hands on. “Get your brother and sister and leave. Don't take anything else with you. Go somewhere no one knows you, preferably out of the country. Do it today—go right now.”

He knows there are questions on Makoto’s tongue, just inside his faded smile; he sees the questions in Makoto’s eyes but he can’t answer them. He shakes his head and Makoto doesn’t ask, doesn’t say anything, just nods. 

Then Makoto steps in like he’s going to kiss Sousuke and Sousuke steps back because he can’t, he shouldn’t even have come here again and the fact that he did, the danger he may have put Ran and Ren and Makoto in by doing so—Sousuke steps back and walks away forever this time.

But not before Makoto kisses him one last time.

Sousuke makes it to the designated place and the extraction goes off without incident.

 

It’s years since then and he’s in another country far from that one, far as well from the one where he was born. It’s years later and Sousuke still thinks about that kiss, still thinks about Makoto. Sometimes he even imagines he sees Makoto, but of course it never is Makoto.

In this time and place, Sousuke is a waiter in a café frequented by the kinds of people who have the kinds of secrets the people Sousuke reports to like to hear about. He’s good at his job and the owner offered him a room above the café but Sousuke politely declined; he prefers to move rooms every few months, prefers not to get to be anything but a paying tenant to his landlords.

As he goes over to take the order from one of the outside corner tables, Sousuke thinks the man has the same color hair as Makoto. He sometimes indulges himself like this, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

He shakes the comparison out of his mind and walks up to the table, and the man with Makoto’s hair looks up, and he also has Makoto’s face.

Neither of them says anything right away.

“Can you take your break now?” Makoto says.

Sousuke can. He takes off his apron and sits down in the chair opposite Makoto. He has more questions than he can sort through easily, let alone articulate. A thought separates itself from the chaos in his head and he gives it voice. “It’s not a coincidence you’re here.”

Makoto shakes his head. “I’ve always known how to find you.”

A dizzying sensation haunts Sousuke as he pieces it together, trying to make sense of the pieces even as they fall into place. Makoto is here. Makoto has always known how to find him. Makoto has always known… Makoto has always known.

And Rin was the one who gave him Makoto’s address. “Rin…”

“Within the hour,” Makoto says calmly, “you’re going to get word that Matsuoka Rin has been burned. That he’s been uncovered as a double agent.”

The chill that runs through Sousuke must show on his face because Makoto’s expression softens. “He’s already safe.”

Sousuke lets out a breath and nods.

Then Makoto reaches into his inner jacket pocket, takes out an envelope and pushes it across the table. Sousuke looks at it. He doesn’t open it, doesn’t even touch it, doesn’t ask what it is; he knows what envelopes like this contain. “Am I in danger?”

“No. It’s an offer.”

Rin and Makoto have been working together a long time, it seems. At least since then. Which must mean: “He sent me to you back then. To, what—to be evaluated?” He doesn’t need Makoto’s nod but he takes it. He thinks there’s more to be said but he doesn’t know what it is and falls silent.

“Sleeping with you wasn’t part of it,” Makoto says.

Oh, yeah, okay, there it is. The words that come to Sousuke now are, Then what was sleeping with me, but he’s not going to say that; he doesn’t say that or anything else.

“You were everything Rin said you’d be, and more,” Makoto says. “The more I got to know you, the more you surprised me. What you did at the end, to get me and my siblings to safety when you thought we were in danger—”

He breaks off as Sousuke starts visibly at the mention of Ran and Ren. “It’s all right; they’re fine, they’re safe.”

Sousuke nods. He takes a breath. Takes another moment before he says, “You staged the break-in.”

It’s Makoto’s turn to nod. “I thought I had seen all I needed to. It was time to send you back, until we were ready to call on you.”

“And you’re ready now.”

Makoto nods again. “We can also offer you sanctuary, if you want to get out of the game.”

Sousuke looks at Makoto carefully, trying to study his face. How many evenings, how many mornings did he study this face and somehow never saw…

“Why would you make such an offer?”

“What you did for my sister and brother.” Makoto’s expression shifts but Sousuke still can’t read it. “It spoke well of your character.”

“It spoke well of my character,” Sousuke repeats. He looks at Makoto, looks at Makoto looking at him… “Is that all?”

Something crosses Makoto’s face too quickly for Sousuke, even trained as he is, to catch.

“No.” Makoto takes a breath deep enough to make his gaze flicker, his lashes fluttering. His voice is softer than it’s been, the kind of soft Sousuke remembers from late nights and early mornings… “That’s not all,” Makoto says softly. “That hasn’t been all since the first morning you woke up in my bed.”

Their gazes meet and hold.

Sousuke reaches out and picks up the envelope. His next breath is deep, unexpectedly easy. He’s going home; he’s finally going home, to a place he’s never been but already feels safe in.


End file.
